Chapter 34 : Days in the Free City of Loren (10)

Chapter 34: Days in the Free City of Loren (10)

The Free City of Loren sat along a spur of the harsh Arhen Mountain Range that cut through the continent’s center.

Because of that, vicious and dangerous monsters often lurked around the Free City of Loren, and the yeti counted as one of them.

Shatien and his party headed for the Arhen Mountains, following a steep forest path almost the moment they left the Free City of Loren.

After packing this and that, the load on his shoulders felt fairly heavy.

“As you all know, everything outside from here on out is lawless. There is no one you can trust. Sometimes they even use children as bait to commit banditry.”

Hudson said that as they walked.

A small bit of pity could turn into a major crisis, so he warned them early.

Mercenaries from rural places, especially devout types, often failed to grasp that point and fell into traps.

Of course, Shatien and Miles…

“Given how rough this place is, the very fact that a child is out here is something we should doubt from the start. I will take care.”

“Hmph. Care, my foot. Just crack their skulls. They are bound to turn into bandits anyway, right? That is what they have been learning by example.”

“…”

They simply did not have that softhearted sensibility.

Because of that, Hudson looked at the two of them as if he were looking at savages. Shatien, for his part, found it absurd to be lumped together with Miles.

“Let us talk about how we are going to kill the yeti.”

With a sigh, Shatien brought it up. It was a fairly difficult question. Usually you hunted from range with something like a crossbow, but doing that made it hard to get high-grade hide.

Think about it.

You could say to put an instant kill shot into the head, but a yeti was not going to sit there like an idiot. If you brought it down with crossbows, the bolts would be peppered all over the body.

Naturally the quality of the hide fell off a cliff.

“Isn’t digging a pit trap the best? The merchant association told us the area, so the yeti should be somewhere around there, no?”

At Miles’s words, Hudson gave a small nod.

“That is true… but how are you going to drop a yeti into a trap? It is not going to say thanks and hop into a hole just because you dug one.”

You had to set a trap with something that would draw the target.

If you left just anything out there, all sorts of things would flock in. The Arhen Mountains were vast, and monsters and predators of all kinds teemed there.

“Hmm. Still, if we dig the trap near where the guild pointed us, the odds are good it is a yeti, are they not?”

Listening quietly, Shatien spoke.

“And from what I heard, yetis have something they especially like.”

“What?”

“Really?”

“Yes, I heard it from my father.”

In truth, he had not heard it from his father, he had learned it while actually taking part in a yeti hunt.

A hunter from the eastern Empire had lured out a yeti with a special trick, and Shatien had gotten him very drunk and wrung the tip out of him.

“From… your father? Can we trust that? It could be a bad rumor. Most of what you hear in the countryside is wrong. Shatien.”

When Hudson spoke cautiously, Miles shouted.

“Hey now! Shatien’s father is different. The other day he told us about a shortcut nobody knew, and it was right, you know?”

“R-Really?”

“Yes! As far as I know, that ruined—”

“Ahem, ahem. Anyway, what I heard is real, but there is a bigger problem.”

When Miles looked ready to start spouting nonsense, Shatien cut him off fast.

“A bigger problem?”

“Yes. Hudson, have you thought about what bait a yeti would like most?”

“Hmm… not sure. Meat, maybe?”

Shatien gave a wry smile.

“A living person. And not just any person…”

After a beat, Shatien looked at Hudson and continued.

“Someone who smells of iron.”

“W-What?!”

But Hudson seemed to misunderstand something.

“You did not call me out here to do that to me, did you?!”

With a face gone pale, he spoke with a shocked tone. Shatien found it absurd, but when his eyes met Miles’s, he suddenly felt like teasing him.

“My, you are quick on the uptake, Hudson.”

“Right, if we want to do this the nice way, this just got annoying huh? Heh heh heh.”

When Miles piled on, Hudson truly panicked.

“Aaaah! You crazy mercenary bastards. You think I will die like this? Come on then. Come on—!”

Hudson shouted at the top of his lungs and put a hand to his hilt. If it came to it, he meant to whip the blade out fast.

But despite that bluster, his legs shook like an aspen.

In the end, Miles burst out laughing.

“Ahahahaha, this guy is funny.”

“Ahem. Hudson, calm down. It was a joke. If we were going to jump you, why would we say so? We would do it quickly while you slept.”

“Uh… huh?”

Maybe his brain shorted out, because Hudson wore a blank look.

Miles and Shatien glanced at each other and laughed out loud.

Only then did Hudson realize he had been had, and he exploded.

“You damn mercenary bastards. Do not pull garbage like that. My heart is not great as it is, are you trying to kill someone!”

The commotion brightened the mood, but the problem was not solved.

How would they kill the yeti?

Shatien’s remark that people were used as bait for yeti hunts was true. During a past hunt he had joined, that was exactly what had been done.

Of course, Shatien had no intention of doing that. He was not some wicked villain who used people as bait.

He already had something in mind.

“Let us use monkeys. The Arhen Mountains are crawling with them anyway, so we can catch one and put some cheap armor on it.”

“Oh-! That makes sense.”

“That’d be a perfect bait.”

Everyone nodded at Shatien’s words. It was a reasonably sound idea. Then Hudson added one more thought.

“Then how about we smear poison on the monkey’s outside?”

“Poison?”

“Yeah. If it falls into the trap and thrashes around, the hide could get damaged. What we need is the hide, so who cares if the meat gets tainted by the poison, right?”

It was a valid point.

Except for one thing.

“We did not pack any poison though, right?”

Hudson answered with great confidence.

“I am Hudson, Decurion of the Recon Unit.”

“Retired ‘former’ Decurion of the Recon Unit, is that not right?”

“...Enough with the jokes, Miles. So, Hudson, you can get poison?”

“Yeah. The place is lousy with it. Even that mushroom there is poisonous.”

Hudson plucked a mushroom with blue speckles from a tree behind them.

Shatien shrugged as he looked at it.

“If you know how to choose, it makes a superb poison. We can trust you, right, Hudson?”

“Of course! If I botch it, I lose my life. You think I would stake my life on a lie?”

That, he had to admit, sounded reliable. No one gambled with his life on a lie. Besides, if something went wrong here, the one in the most danger would be Hudson, who lacked the same level of skill.

“Good. Then, Hudson, please gather the mushrooms we can use for poison. We will go catch a monkey.”

“Heheheh, you can trust me. I will have everything ready by the time you are back!”

* * *

The Arhen Mountains were supposedly lousy with monkeys, but today they were nowhere to be seen.

Shatien and Miles had to push deeper into the range before they finally found a troop.

“Eek! Ee-kee-kee! Eek!”

“Ugh! That little bastard! He’s driving me crazy, I can’t even catch him!”

Of course, just because we ran into a group of monkeys didn’t mean we could catch them right away.

Having somehow survived in the Arhen Mountains, where ferocious predators roamed freely, the monkeys had good instincts for danger and were doing their best to flee from Shatien and Miles.

Every so often, one of them even turned around to shriek mockingly at them, so it was only natural that Miles was burning with irritation.

Still, they were only monkeys.

-Squeal!

“Ha ha ha! You little punk! You think you can mess with me? Let’s see you try that again!”

In the end, one was caught by Miles.

A monkey that had come down to wiggle its backside in mockery got spotted by him. Miles dropped to all fours, lunged forward, and grabbed it in one move.

When the terrified monkey scrambled up a tree to escape, Miles climbed after it like an orangutan and caught it with his mouth, to the point it was hard to tell which of the two was the animal.

“Eek! Keeee! Eek! Eek!”

“Oh, look at this! Pretending to cry now, huh? Rookie, isn’t this guy crafty? Trying to pull one over on us!”

“…Yes, Miles.”

Trying to preserve what little dignity remained for humanity, Shatien turned his head away and decided to pretend he hadn’t seen anything.

‘Still, I hope we’re not too late.’

They had spent so long chasing monkeys that the sun was already sinking beyond the ridge.

In the mountains, dusk always came quickly. Without proper preparation, one careless moment could mean spending the entire night awake in the cold darkness.

“We should hurry, Miles. Spending a night in the Arhen Mountains is far too dangerous.”

“Hm, true enough. The place is crawling with monsters. Let’s clean this up and head down. I saw a peddler’s camp not too far from here earlier. Hahaha, we’ll join them and get ourselves some stew!”

Miles laughed heartily, and the monkey echoed him with a series of shrill cries.

“Oh? Look at this little guy! Are you happy too? Hahaha!”

“Eek eek eek!”

“…”

Shatien could only shake his head. The damn monkey really had forgotten its situation…

He sighed and turned away. They needed to move quickly if they were going to reach the place where they were supposed to meet Hudson.

Fortunately, the path led downhill, which made things easier than the climb up.

After walking for some time, they finally reached the meeting point before the sun disappeared completely.

In the distance, they spotted Hudson and their luggage.

“?”

But something looked off.

“What the hell is that?”

“Eek? Keeek?”

Hudson wasn’t alone.

A group of unfamiliar men had surrounded him in a wide circle.

And every single one of them was armed.

“Fucking hell?! Those guys look like bandits, right?”

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